Hot-beds of Tension: Real and present dangers

Hot-beds of Tension:

• The Horn of Africa
• Congo
• Sudan
• Central Africa Republic
• Rwanda
• Burundi
• Mali
• Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
• Algeria
• Angola  

• RESPONDING TO REAL AND PRESENT DANGERS •

• FACILITATING SELF-MOBILISATION •
CHALLENGING DOGMA AND PROPAGANDA

• EFFECTIVE NETWORK •
AMBUSHING AN IMMINENT CONJUNCTION

• THE ENDURING IMPERATIVES •
OF THE PAN-AFRICANIST STRUGGLE

• CONSOLIDATION OF INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY •

RESPONDING TO REAL AND PRESENT DANGERS

-DRAFT-

So far as the Real And Present Dangers facing the people of the African continent are awaiting no excuses in order to strike, the African people owe no one any excuses in order to respond and reverse these threats by any means necessary. The alternative is to risk paying with our lives, water, health, education facilities, peace, and social progress. To effectively confront the kind of challenges and levels of threats we face today as a people, we need the urgent involvement of each and every one of us in remaining vigilant, well-informed, and active in the intensive public debates on remedial actions, implications on institutional, social, and the anticipated behavioural changes.

Above all, as a people whose only strength lies in our unity of action, consensus building among us is crucial in order to effectively respond and reverse these threats. We have reached a stage where it is simply suicidal to leave such matters exclusively in the hands a handful of good and dedicated individuals, surrounded by a park of opportunistic and corrupt professional politicians, state bureaucrats and various international players of doubtful intentions and abilities. The absence of people-to-people contacts and a grass root continental platform cannot simply be explained away as accident of history, but an indication of a paralysis or an indictment on all of us who identify ourselves with the forces of progress in Africa.

Those who have everything to lose from our unity would naturally do their best to discourage and sabotage any such initiatives. There is no doubt that the neo-colonialist divide and rule tactic is not going to be voluntarily relaxed just for us to unite, even if our unity is needed to save us from extinction because of their inordinate and justifiable fear of what we could do with it afterwards, if successful. Our unity, just like our freedom and all the rest of our social and economic rights have to be fought for, and won. We simply cannot afford to lose the struggle for our unification. If we remain divided and unable to come together even to save our own lives, we are obviously a people without a future.

Most remedial measures tend to avoid the obvious necessity to put the people whose lives and deaths this is all about, and whose involvement in solving the problems is indispensable in any effective measures, at the epicentre of the requisite changes and responses to these challenges. Africa is already paying a heavy price for the centuries of colonial partition, neo-colonialist bantustanisation and ossification into isolated and non-viable backwater states. Whilst the depth, scale, as well as the intensity required of such a long overdue continental engagement among the people themselves is unprecedented in the history of any people on the planet, it must also be carried out with break-neck speed if we are not to be overtaken by events.

Thus, we do not have the luxury of isolated, sporadic and spontaneous responses as an option. And time is what we do not have. We need an urgent, systematic, comprehensive, organised and sustained responses for short, medium and long-term solutions. In order to properly respond, we have to know, at least, what is going on. How many of even our so-called leaders fully appreciate the magnitude of these challenges? Are we not supposed to play any role in our own salvation? Is it not strange that we do not even know much to make informed responses? What can ordinary people and individuals do about these challenges? How come in this age of information revolution, the concerned public are so much starved of information about Africa and her struggles for peace and dignity, and even for sheer survival? Who is listening to us? Should we not make them listen?

How many of even our so-called leaders fully appreciate the magnitude of these challenges?
Are we not supposed to play any role in our own salvation?
Is it not strange that we do not even know much to make informed responses?
How come in this age of information revolution, the concerned public are so much starved of information about Africa and her struggles for peace and dignity, and even for sheer survival?
Who is listening to us? Should we not make them listen?
What can ordinary people and individuals do about these challenges?

In the news:

The Right To Water
GM Crops and Foods
Corporate, Foreign Government land grab
The United States Africa Command (US Africom)
Climate Change and Climate Reparations

  • RESPONDING TO REAL AND PRESENT DANGERS •


Food Sovereignty and Security

Social

The Ecology

Health

Education

Peace and Security

The Wealth of Africa


• FACILITATING SELF-MOBILISATION •
CHALLENGING DOGMA AND PROPAGANDA

• EFFECTIVE NETWORK •
AMBUSHING AN IMMINENT CONJUNCTION

• THE ENDURING IMPERATIVES •
OF THE PAN-AFRICANIST STRUGGLE

• CONSOLIDATION OF INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY •

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We are living in a very decisive moment of history. Everything points to that, including the very survival of all forms of life on earth. The real problem is that not many people really bother about this enormous responsibility of our times. This is what makes it scary. We remain optimists though. Trouble is how much time have we got, if we can even help to make any difference?


We feel it important to provide information on a number of relevant issues, including culture and media and we'll be launching regular campaigns on current issues. To advance communication, we'll be providing a forum where you can register and open your own topics.

For those who wish to organise or help us get organized, please do. We'll be adding useful tools that will enable people to connect wherever they may be. One of these will be our magazine which we are going to publish on a regular basis. If you're an artist, photographer or wish to add your ideas, text and analyses, feel welcome.
That's basically our message: we are here for you


Comment:

TOWARDS A NON-VIOLENT STRUGGLE FOR CHANGE IN AFRICA!

"I completely agree with you on this:

We are living in a very decisive moment of history. Everything points to that, including the very survival of all forms of life on earth. The real problem is that not many people really bother about this enormous responsibility of our times. This is what makes it scary. I remain an optimist though. Trouble is how much time have we got, if we can even help to make any difference?

I like the idea of the website, and for articles and statements meant to have more permanence than most blog posts, I think you are exactly right with making things "as simple as possible and as detailed as you click".  The other thing is you want to do is to tell a story.  That usually means introduce the themes and any characters, say what you have to say with links for more details, and wrap it up by neatly and succinctly stating your conclusions, telling people the end of the story.  Everybody likes a good story.  The more your document reads like a good story and the less it reads like a manifesto the better.  Manifestos are important and necessary too.  But they should be short.

Networking/Organizations/Movements:  Where movements come to grief is factions fighting among themselves.  As much as a movement or organization can allow for multiple points of view and a variety of approaches the better.   The more any group is doctrinaire, the more it undermines its own support and credibility. 

I think it is critically important to be non violent as a political movement for credibility.  Violence backfires and discredits the movement, as in blowing up children and families.  Additionally violence gives immediate permission to act outside the law.  That usually leads very quickly to criminal activity, the drug and weapons trade, which are the same, kidnapping, terrorism, etc.  A lot of criminal activity goes on in the Niger Delta in the name of liberation, the IRA turned into a mostly criminal gang.  The crime and drug business is what many Latin American liberation movements became.  There are times for violent resistance.  I don't see any use or reason for it in Ghana at present.  It is very much a last resort.

There are situations where violence is appropriate, as for instance, to eliminate warring criminal gangs that make life hell for the average citizen.  The danger here of course is that any military presence risks becoming just another one of the warring groups plaguing the population.  And there are occasional justifications for violent insurrections.  I'm not a pacifist, but I do not like to see lives wasted for nothing.   Most violent conflict is lives wasted for nothing."